LONG
Tom Peters’
Excellence.
Always.
Leaders in India/Business Forum
Taj Lands End/09 October 2009
11
Slides
[incl. “LONG”]
at …
tompeters.com
21
To appreciate
this presentation [and ensure
that it is not a mess], you need
Microsoft fonts:
NOTE:
“Showcard Gothic,”
“Ravie,” “Chiller”
and “Verdana”
3
#1
41
14,000
20,000
30
14,000/eBAY
20,000/Amazon
30/Craigslist
“The doctor
interrupts
after …*
*Source: Jerome Groupman, How Doctors Think
1
1
[An obsession with] Listening is ... the ultimate mark of Respect.
Listening is ... the heart and soul of Engagement.
Listening is ... the heart and soul of Kindness.
Listening is ... the heart and soul of Thoughtfulness.
Listening is ... the basis for true Collaboration.
Listening is ... the basis for true Partnership.
Listening is ... a Team Sport.
Listening is ... a Developable Individual Skill.* (*Though women are far better at it than men.)
Listening is ... the basis for Community.
Listening is ... the bedrock of Joint Ventures that work.
Listening is ... the bedrock of Joint Ventures that last.
Listening is ... the core of effective Cross-functional Communication*
(*Which is in turn Attribute #1 of organizational effectiveness.)
Listening is ... the engine of superior EXECUTION.
Listening is ... the key to making the Sale.
Listening is ... the key to Keeping the Customer’s Business.
Listening is ... the engine of Network development.
Listening is ... the engine of Network maintenance.
Listening is ... the engine of Network expansion.
Listening is ... Learning.
Listening is ...the sine qua non of Renewal.
Listening is ...the sine qua non of Creativity.
Listening is ...the sine qua non of Innovation.
Listening is ... the core of taking Diverse opinions aboard.
Listening is ... Strategy.
Listening is ... Source #1 of “Value-added.”
Listening is ... Differentiator #1.
Listening is ... Profitable.*
(*The “R.O.I.” from listening is higher than from any other single activity.)
Listening underpins ... Commitment to EXCELLENCE
91
“The four most
important words in
any organization
are …
1
The four most important words in any organization
are …
“What do
you
think?”
Source: courtesy Dave Wheeler, posted at tompeters.com
1
#2
121
1973-77
Washington/
Palo Alto
131
Conrad Hilton, at a gala
celebrating his career,
was asked, “What was the
most important lesson
you’ve learned in you long
and distinguished career?”
His immediate answer …
1
“remember
to tuck the
shower curtain
inside the
bathtub”
1
“Execution
is
strategy.”
—Fred Malek
1
#3
171
1977
Palo Alto
181
MBWA
191
201
“Tom let
me tell you the definition of a
good lending officer. After
church on Sunday, on the way
home with his family, he takes
a little detour to drive by the
factory he just lent money to.
Doesn’t go in or any such
thing, just drives by and takes
a look.”
Message from a banker, circa 1988:
211
Skip the map
221
“Mapping your
competitive
position”
or …
1
The “Have
you …” 50
1
1. Have you in the
last 10 days …
visited a
customer?
2. Have you called a
customer … TODAY?
251
#4
261
1982
271
Excellence1982: The Bedrock “Eight Basics”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
A Bias for Action
Close to the Customer
Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
Productivity Through People
Hands On, Value-Driven
Stick to the Knitting
Simple Form, Lean Staff
Simultaneous Loose-Tight
Properties”
281
“Breakthrough” 82*
People!
Customers!
Action!
Values!
*In Search of Excellence
1
Hard Is Soft
Soft Is Hard
1
Hard Is Soft (Plans, #s)
Soft Is Hard (people,
customers, values,
relationships))
1
none!
1
139,380 former
patients from 225 hospitals:
Press Ganey Assoc:
none
of THE top 15 factors
determining Patient Satisfaction
referred to patient’s health outcome
P.S. directly related to Staff Interaction
P.P.S. directly correlated with Employee
Satisfaction
Source: Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton, Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
1
“Kindness
is free.”
1
“There is a misconception that supportive interactions require
more staff or more time and are therefore more costly. Although
labor costs are a substantial part of any hospital budget, the
interactions themselves add nothing to the budget.
Kindness is
free.
Listening to patients or answering their
questions costs nothing. It can be argued that negative
interactions—alienating patients, being non-responsive to their
needs or limiting their sense of control—can be very costly. …
Angry, frustrated or frightened patients may be combative,
withdrawn and less cooperative—requiring far more time
than it would have taken to interact with them initially in a
positive way.” —Putting Patients First, Susan Frampton,
Laura Gilpin, Patrick Charmel
1
“Courtesies of a small and
trivial character are the
ones which strike
deepest in the grateful
and appreciating heart.”
—Henry Clay
1
“We are
thoughtful
in all we do.”
371
Thoughtfulness is key to customer retention.
Thoughtfulness is key to employee recruitment
and satisfaction.
Thoughtfulness is key to brand perception.
Thoughtfulness is key to your ability to look in
the mirror —and tell your kids about your job.
“Thoughtfulness is free.”
Thoughtfulness is key to speeding things up—
it reduces friction.
Thoughtfulness is key to transparency and even
cost containment—it abets rather than stifles
truth-telling.
381
#5
391
2007
Siberia
401
Why in the
World did you
go to Siberia?
41
An
emotional, vital, innovative,
joyful, creative,
entrepreneurial endeavor
that elicits maximum
Enterprise* ** (*at its best):
concerted human
potential in the
wholehearted service of
others.**
**Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Communities, Owners, Temporary partners 421
#6
431
2007
Sydney
441
… no less than
Cathedrals in
which the full and awesome
power of the Imagination and
Spirit and native
Entrepreneurial flair of
diverse individuals is unleashed
in passionate pursuit of …
Excellence.
1
“The role of the Director is to create a
space where the actors and actresses
become more than
they’ve ever been
before, more than
they’ve dreamed of
being.”
can
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech
461
“You have to
treat your
employees like
customers.”
—Herb Kelleher,
complete answer, upon being asked his “secrets to success”
Source: Joe Nocera, NYT, “Parting Words of an Airline Pioneer,” on the occasion of
Herb Kelleher’s retirement after 37 years at Southwest Airlines (SWA’s pilots union
took out a full-page ad in USA Today thanking HK for all he had done; across the
way in Dallas American Airlines’ pilots were picketing the Annual Meeting)
471
“We are a ‘Life
Success’
Company.”
Dave Liniger, founder, RE/MAX
481
“Business has to give people enriching,
or it's
simply not
worth
doing.”
rewarding lives …
—Richard Branson
491
“Leaders
‘SERVE’
people.
Period.”
—inspired by Robert Greenleaf
501
Good News 2009:
Leadership*
is a sacred
trust.
*President, classroom teacher, CEO, shop foreman
511
“Managers have lost dignity over the past
decade in the face of wide spread institutional
breakdown of trust and self-policing in
To regain society’s trust,
we believe that business leaders
must embrace a way of looking at
their role that goes beyond their
responsibility to the shareholders
to include a civic and personal
commitment to their duty as
institutional custodians. In other
business.
words, it is time hat management became
a profession.” —Rakesh Khurana & Niin Nohria, “It’s ime
To Make Management a True Profession,” HBR/10.08
521
“The ONE Question”: “In the last year [3 years, current job], name
three
people
the …
… whose growth you’ve most
contributed to. Please explain where they were at the beginning of
the year, where they are today, and where they are heading in the
next 12 months. Please explain your development strategy in each
case. Please tell me your biggest development disappointment—
looking back, could you or would you have done anything differently?
Please tell me about your greatest development triumph—and
disaster—in the last ten years. What
are the ‘three big things’ you’ve learned about helping people
grow along the way.”
1
2/year =
legacy.
541
#1 cause of
Dis-satisfaction?
551
Employee retention & satisfaction:
Overwhelmingly,
based on the firstline manager!
Source: Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, First, Break All the Rules:
What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
1
“Development can help great people be
but if I had a
dollar to spend, I’d
spend 70 cents getting
the right person in the
door.”
even better—
—Paul Russell, Director, Leadership &
Development, Google
571
Our Mission
To develop and manage talent;
to apply that talent,
throughout the world,
for the benefit of clients;
to do so in partnership;
to do so with profit.
WPP
581
#7
591
“AS LEADERS,
WOMEN RULE:
New Studies find that female managers outshine their
male counterparts in almost every measure”
TITLE/ Special Report/ BusinessWeek
601
“Catalyst just completed a study showing that
with at least three
women directors
performed significantly
better than average in terms of
companies
return on equity (16.7% better), return on sales
(16.8%), and return on invested capital (10%)
Source: Newsweek, 1015.07/16% of S&P500 board
members are women; 9% (45) no women
611
“Forget China, India
and the Internet:
Economic Growth Is
Driven by
Women.”
Source: Headline, Economist
“Women are
the majority
market”
—Fara Warner/The Power of the Purse
631
“Goldman Sachs in Tokyo has
developed an index of 115
companies poised to benefit from
women’s increased purchasing
power; over the past decade the
value of shares in Goldman’s
basket has risen by 96%, against
the Tokyo stockmarket’s rise of
13%.” —Economist
94%
of loans to …
women*
*Microlending; “Banker to the poor”; Grameen Bank;
Muhammad Yunus; 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner
1
“CEMEX realized that women
are the key drivers of savings
in [Mexican] families. … They are
entrepreneurial in nature, and they actively
participate in the tanda system [neighborhood groups who
pool money and save any that’s left over]. Regardless of
whether they are homemakers or outside-the-home
workers, they are responsible for any savings in the
family. Patrimonio Hoy [Private Property Today, a CEMEX
program to aid the poor in building homes] discovered that
70% of the women who saved were saving money in
the tanda system to construct homes for their
families. The men in the society consider their job
done if they bring in their paycheck at the end of the
day.” —C.K. Prahalad, from The Fortune at the Bottom of
the Pyramid, on Lorenzo Zambrano and CEMEX, the Mexican
company that’s the world’s #3 cement maker
661
“One thing is certain: Women’s rise to power, which is
linked to the increase in wealth per capita, is happening
in all domains and at all levels of society. Women are no
longer content to provide efficient labor or to be
consumers with rising budgets and more autonomy to
spend. … This is just the beginning. The phenomenon
will only grow as girls prove to be more successful than
For a number of
observers, we have already
entered the age of
‘womenomics,’ the economy as
thought out and practiced
by a woman.” —Aude Zieseniss de Thuin, Financial
boys in the school system.
Times, 10.03.2006
1
#8
681
Innovation:
Base Case
691
“I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs seeking
escape from life within huge corporate structures, ‘How do
I build a small firm for myself?’ The answer seems obvious:
Buy a very large
one and just
wait.”
—Paul Ormerod, Why Most Things Fail:
Evolution, Extinction and Economics
701
“Mr. Foster and his McKinsey colleagues collected detailed performance
data stretching back
40 years for 1,000 U.S. companies.
They found that
none
of
the long-term survivors managed to
outperform the market. Worse, the
longer companies had been in the
database, the worse they did.” —Financial Times
1
“Not a single company that
qualified as having made a
sustained transformation
ignited its leap with a big
acquisition or merger. Moreover,
comparison companies—those that failed to make a
leap or, if they did, failed to sustain it—often tried to
make themselves great with a
big acquisition or merger. They failed to grasp the
simple truth that while you can buy
your way to growth, you cannot buy your way to
greatness.” —Jim Collins/Time/2004
1
“When asked to name just one big
merger that had lived up to
expectations, Leon Cooperman,
former cochairman of Goldman Sachs’
Investment Policy Committee,
I’m sure there are
success stories out
there, but at this
moment I draw a blank.”
answered:
—Mark Sirower, The Synergy Trap
1
Spinoffs
systematically
perform better than IPOs … track
record, profits … “freed from
the confines of the parent
… more entrepreneurial,
more nimble”
—Jerry Knight/ Washington Post/ 08.05
1
“Data drawn from the real world
attest to a fact that is beyond our
Everything in
existence tends to
deteriorate.”
control:
—Norberto Odebrecht, Education Through Work
751
“A pattern emphasized in the case
studies in this book is the degree to
which powerful competitors not
only resist innovative threats,
but actually resist all efforts to
understand them, preferring to
further their positions in older
products. This results in a surge of
productivity and performance that
may take the old technology to
unheard of heights. But in most cases
this is a sign of impending death.”
—Jim Utterback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation
761
More than $$$$
R&D
spending,
last 25 years?
771
781
Mission impossible?
$36B/’98
minus
$675M/‘07
1
$10,000,000/Day
1
“Schrempp is one of the last
dinosaurs of Germany Inc. He
represents a strategy of acquiring
assets and building empires that
just didn’t work.” —Arndt Ellinghorst, analyst,
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
“His bets went sour one by
one.” —WSJ on Jürgen Schrempp’s conglomeration (05.15.2007)
“Obviously, we overestimated the
potential for synergies.” —Dieter Zetsche,
CEO, Daimler
1
“It is generally much easier to
organization
kill an
than change it
substantially.”
—Kevin Kelly, Out of Control
1
“Wealth in this new regime
flows directly from innovation,
not optimization. That is,
wealth is not gained by
but by
imperfectly seizing the
unknown.” —Kevin Kelly, New Rules for
perfecting the known,
the New Economy
1
What “We” Know “For Sure” About Innovation
Big mergers [by & large] don’t work
Scale is over-rated
Strategic planning is the last refuge of scoundrels
Focus groups are counter-productive
“Built to last” is a chimera (stupid)
Success kills
“Forgetting” is impossible
Re-imagine is a charming idea
“Orderly innovation process” is an oxymoronic phrase
(= Believed only by morons with ox-like brains)
“Tipping points” are easy to identify …
long after they will do you any good
“Facts” aren’t
All information making it to the top is filtered
to the point of danger and hilarity
“Success stories” are the illusions of egomaniacs (and “gurus”)
If you believe the memoirs of CEOs you should be institutionalized
“Herd behavior” (XYZ is “hot”) is ubiquitous
… and amusing
“Top teams” are “Dittoheads”
CEOs have little effect on performance
“Expert” prediction is rarely better than rolling the dice
841
#9
851
#4 Japan
#2T USA
#2T China
861
#4 Japan
#3 USA
#2 China
#1 Germany
871
Reason!!!
Mittelstand
881
#10
891
Jim Penman/
Jim’s Group
901
Jim’s Mowing Canada
Jim’s Mowing UK
Jim’s Antennas
Jim’s Bookkeeping
Jim’s Building Maintenance
Jim’s Carpet Cleaning
Jim’s Car Cleaning
Jim’s Computer Services
Jim’s Dog Wash
Jim’s Driving School
Jim’s Fencing
Jim’s Floors
Jim’s Painting
Jim’s Paving
Jim’s Pergolas [gazebos]
Jim’s Pool Care
Jim’s Pressure Cleaning
Jim’s Roofing
Jim’s Security Doors
Jim’s Trees
Jim’s Window Cleaning
Jim’s Windscreens
Note: Download, free, Jim Penman’s book:
What Will They Franchise Next? The Story of Jim’s Group
1
Jim’s Group: Jim Penman.*
1984: Jim’s Mowing. 2006: Jim’s Group.
2,600 franchisees (Australia, NZ, UK).
Cleaning. Dog washing. Handyman.
Fencing. Paving. Pool care. Etc.
“People first.” Private. Small staff. Franchisees
can leave at will. 0-1 complaint per year is
norm; cut bad ones quickly.
*Ph.D. cross-cultural anthropology; mowing on the side
Source: MT/Management Today (Australia), Jan-Feb 2006
921
*Lived in same town all adult life
*First generation that’s wealthy/no parental support
*“Don’t look like millionaires, don’t dress
like millionaires, don’t eat like millionaires, don’t act
like millionaires”
*“Many of the types of businesses [they]
are in could be classified as ‘dull- normal.’ [They] are
welding contractors, auctioneers, scrap-metal dealers,
lessons of portable toilets, dry cleaners, re-builders of
diesel engines, paving contractors …”
Source: The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley & William Danko
931
Guru Gaffes: The “Terrible Ten”:
Big companies ………… SMEs
Public companies …….. Private
companies.
“Cool” industries ……… Dull industries
Stability …………………... Churn
Famous CEOs ………….. Laudable CEOs
“Hard” stuff ……………... “Soft” stuff
Plans ……………………..… Action-Execution
“Success” …………..…….. Excellence
Men …………………..…….. Women
Incrementalism-Kaizen .. Imagination
unbound
1
#11
951
961
Try it. Try it. Try it.
ry it. Try it. Screw i
p. Try it. Try it. Try i
Try it. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Screw it up. it
Try it. Try it. try it.
ry it. Screw it up. Tr
971
“We have a
‘strategic plan.’
It’s called doing
things.”
— Herb Kelleher
981
“This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing
how few oil people really understand that
you only find
oil if you drill
wells.
You may think you’re finding it
when you’re drawing maps and
studying logs, but you have to drill.”
Source: The Hunters, by John Masters, Canadian O & G wildcatter
991
“We made mistakes, of course. Most of them were
omissions we didn’t think of when we initially wrote the
software. We fixed them by doing it over and over, again and
again. We do the same today. While our competitors are
still sucking their thumbs trying to make the design
perfect, we’re already on prototype version
#5.
By
the time our rivals are ready with wires and screws, we
are on version
#10. It gets back to
planning versus acting: We act
from day one; others plan how to
plan—for months.” —Bloomberg by Bloomberg
1001
Culture of Prototyping
“Effective prototyping may
the most
valuable core
competence an
be
innovative organization can
hope to have.” —Michael Schrage
1
Think about It!?
Innovation =
Reaction to the
Prototype
Source: Michael Schrage
1
“You can’t be a serious
innovator unless and until
you are ready, willing and
able to seriously play.
‘Serious play’ is not an
oxymoron; it is the essence
of innovation.”
—Michael Schrage, Serious Play
1
“SkunkWorks”/ “ParallelUniverse”
“the
solution”
Source: Scott Bedbury (Others: 3M, Google, Shell, NAVFAC)
1041
“Venture”
fund: Gerstner/Amex,
Dow/Marriott, Grove/Intel,
Bedbury/Starbucks
1051
#12
1061
“Fail .
Forward.
Fast.”
High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania
1071
“FAIL, FAIL
AGAIN. FAIL
BETTER.”
—Samuel Beckett
1081
“Reward
excellent failures.
Punish mediocre
successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
1091
“In business, you reward
people for taking risks.
doesn’t work
out you promote themWhen it
because they were willing to
try new things. If people tell
me they skied all day and
never fell down, I tell them
to try a different mountain.”
—Michael Bloomberg
1101
Read This!
Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes:
Whoever Makes
the Most Mistakes
Wins: The Paradox
of Innovation
1111
“It is not enough
to ‘tolerate’
failure—you must
‘celebrate’
failure.”
—Richard Farson (Whoever Makes
the Most Mistakes Wins)
1
“Natural selection is death. ...
Without huge amounts of
death, organisms do not
change over time. ... Death
is the mother of structure. ...
It took four billion years of
death ... to invent the human
mind ...” — The Cobra Event
1
“The secret of fast
progress is
inefficiency, fast
and furious and
numerous failures.”
—Kevin Kelly
1
#13
1151
We are the
company
we keep
1
Measure “Strangeness”/Portfolio Quality
Staff
Consultants
Vendors
Out-sourcing Partners (#, Quality)
Innovation Alliance Partners
Customers
Competitors (who we “benchmark” against)
Strategic Initiatives
Product Portfolio (LineEx v. Leap)
IS/IT Projects
HQ Location
Lunch Mates
Language
Board
1171
“[CEO A.G.] Lafley has shifted P&G’s focus on inventing
all its own products to developing
others’
inventions at
least half the
time.
One successful
example, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, based on a product found in
an Osaka market.” —Fortune
1
Axiom: Never use a vendor
who is not in the top
quartile (decile?) in
their industry on R&D
spending!*
*Inspired by Hummingbird
1
“How do dominant companies
lose their position? Two-
thirds of the time,
they pick the wrong
competitor to worry
about.”
—Don Listwin, CEO,
Openwave Systems/WSJ
1
The “We are what we eat”
axiom: At its core, every (!!!)
relationship-partnership decision
(employee, vendor, customer, etc) is
a strategic decision about:
“Innovate,
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ”
1
“The Billion-man
Research Team:
Companies offering
work to online
communities are
reaping the benefits of
‘crowdsourcing.’”
—Headline, FT, 0110.07
1
Rob McEwen/CEO/
Goldcorp Inc./
Red Lake
gold
Wikinomics: How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything,
Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams
Source:
1
“Diverse groups of problem solvers—groups
of people with diverse tools—consistently
outperformed groups of the best and the
brightest. If I formed two groups, one
random (and therefore diverse) and one
consisting of the best individual performers,
the first group almost always did better. …
Diversity trumped
ability.”
—Scott Page, The Difference: How
the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups,
Firms, Schools, and Societies Diversity
1241
“The Bottleneck Is at the
Top of the Bottle”
“Where are you likely to find people with the least diversity of experience, the
largest investment in the past, and the greatest reverence for industry dogma:
At the top!”
— Gary Hamel/Harvard Business Review
1251
“You will become like
the five people you
associate with the
most—this can be
either a blessing or a
curse.”
—Billy Cox
1261
#14
1271
X =XFX*
*Excellence = Cross-functional Excellence
1
Never
waste a
lunch!
1
????
% XF
lunches*
*Measure!
1
(Way) Underutilized Lever
Space!
Space!
Space!
Space!
1
Geologists +
Geophysicists +
A little bit of love =
Oil
1321
GSK: 7 “CEDDs” …
Centers of
Excellence for
Drug Discovery
1
Lunch +
Proximity
> SAP/Oracle
1
The “XF-50”: 50 Ways to
Enhance Cross-Functional
Effectiveness and Deliver
Speed, “Service Excellence”
and “Value-added Customer
‘Solutions’”*
*Entire “XF-50” List is at Appendix ONE
1
#15
1361
Enemy
#1
I.C.D.
Inherent/Inevitable/
Immutable Centralist Drift
Note 1:
Note 2: Jim Burke’s 1-word vocabulary: “No.”
1
CGRO*
*CGRO/Chief Grunge Removal Officer
(CDC/Chief of De-complexification)
(CAO/Chief Anti-systems Officer)
(CBSD/Chief BS Destruction Officer)
1381
The Commerce Bank Model
“every computer at commerce bank has a …
special red key
… on it
that says, ‘found something stupid that we are doing that
interferes with our ability to service the customer? Tell us
about it, and if we agree, we will give you $50.’”
Source: Fans! Not customers. How Commerce Bank Created a
Super-growth Business in a No-growth Industry,
Vernon Hill & Bob Andelman
1
#16
1401
30%
MH: 80%
CF:
(no salesfolk)
(salesfolk)
1
“Best practice” =
ZERO Standard
Deviation
1
SE22/Origins of Sustainable Entrepreneurship
1. Genetically disposed to Innovations that upset apple carts (3M, Apple,
FedEx, Virgin, BMW, Sony, Nike, Schwab, Starbucks, Oracle, Sun,
Fox, Stanford University, MIT)
2. Perpetually determined to outdo oneself, even to
the detriment of today’s $$$ winners (Apple, Cirque du Soleil, Nokia, FedEx)
3. Treat History as the Enemy (GE)
4. Love the Great Leap/Enjoy the Hunt (Apple, Oracle, Intel, Nokia, Sony)
5. Use “Strategic Thrust Overlays” to Attack Monster Problems (Sysco,
GSK, GE, Microsoft)
6. Establish a “Be on the COOL Team” Ethos. (Most PSFs, Microsoft)
7. Encourage Vigorous Dissent/Genetically “Noisy” (Intel, Apple,
Microsoft, CitiGroup, PepsiCo)
8.
“Culturally” as well as
organizationally Decentralized
(GE, J&J, Omnicom)
9. Multi-entrepreneurship/Many Independent-minded Stars (GE, PepsiCo)
1431
SE22/Origins of Sustainable Entrepreneurship
10. Keep decentralizing—tireless in pursuit of wiping out
Centralizing Tendencies (J&J, Virgin)
11. Scour the world for Ingenious Alliance Partners—
especially exciting start-ups (Pfizer)
12. Acquire for Innovation, not Market Share (Cisco, GE)
13. Don’t overdo “pursuit of synergy” (GE, J&J, Time Warner)
14. Execution/Action Bias: Just do it … don’t obsess on
how it “fits the business model.” (3M, J & J)
15. Find and Encourage and Promote Strong-willed/
Hyper-smart/Independent people (GE, PepsiCo, Microsoft)
16. Support Internal Entrepreneurs (3M, Microsoft)
17. Ferret out Talent anywhere/“No limits” approach to
retaining top talent (Virgin, GE, PepsiCo)
1441
SE22/Origins of Sustainable Entrepreneurship
18. Unmistakable Results & Accountability focus from
the get-go to the grave (GE, New York Yankees, PepsiCo)
19. Up
or Out (GE, McKinsey, big consultancies and law
firms and ad agencies and movie studios in general)
20. Competitive to a fault! (GE, New York Yankees, News
Corp/Fox, PepsiCo)
21. “Bi-polar” Top Team, with “Unglued” Innovator #1,
powerful Control Freak #2 (Oracle, Virgin) (Watch out when
#2 is missing: Enron)
22. Masters of Loose-Tight/Hard-nosed about a very few
Core Values, Open-minded about everything else
(Virgin)
1451
#17
1461
The
quality and quantity
and imaginativeness of
innovation shall be the
same in all functions —
Iron Innovation Equality Law:
e.g., in HR and purchasing as much as in
marketing or product development.
1
IB :
$55B*
M
*Also HP-EDS
1481
“THE GIANT STALKING BIG OIL: How
Schlumberger Is
Rewriting the Rules of the Energy
Game.”: “IPM [Integrated Project
Management] strays from
[Schlumberger’s] traditional role as
a service provider and moves deeper
into areas once dominated by the
majors.”
Source: BusinessWeek cover story, January 2008
1
#18
1501
Innovation Index: How many of
your Top 5 Strategic
Initiatives/Key Projects score 8
or higher
on a “Weird”/
“Profound”/ “Wow”/“Gamechanger” Scale?
[out of 10]
1511
#19
1521
Innovation’s “Fourteen Imperatives”
(1) Try it. Repeat. (“1/40.”) (“R.F.A.”/Ready.Fire. Aim.) (Non-Linear!)
Prototype it./MTTP (Mean Time To Prototype.)/(Inno. = Reaction to Proto.)
(2) Celebrate failure.
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
“Whoever makes the most mistakes wins.”
“Fail. Fail again. Fail better.”
“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.”
Decentralize.
Parallel Universe.
“Hang Out” Axiom. (Hang “cool” = More cool. Dull = Dull.)
“d”iversity. (Every dimension.)
Co-invent with outsiders./Entwined with outsiders.
(Including “Crowdsourcing.”)
(8) “Strategic” Listening = Core competence.
(9) Hire and promote 100% innovators.
Innovator’s characteristic = Innovator.
Innovator’s characteristic = Angry. (Anger > Blowback.)
CEO=Innovation “bias.”
(10) XFX/Cross-functional Excellence!! (#1??)
(11) Chief Complexity & Systems Destruction Officer.
(12) R&D Equality.
All functions equal. (VA centerpiece./All staff VA-meisters.)
(13) Fun! Self-deprecating!
(14) Good luck! (Entropy rules.) (Major acquisition = Dumb.)
(All these things work except when they don’t.)
1
#20
1541
L(+21) = L(-21)
1
Leadership(21A.D.) =
Leadership(21B.C.)
1